The Pluto stellar Occultation of 2006 June 12: Observations and Joint Analysis

Details The Pluto stellar Occultation of 2006 June 12: Observations and Joint Analysis The Pluto stellar Occultation of 2006 June 12: Observations and Joint Analysis

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.3103r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #31.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.541

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

1

Scientific paper

Stellar occultations by Pluto provide rare opportunities to study the vertical profiles of temperature, density, and pressure in Pluto's atmosphere. Occultations in 1988 and 2002 showed that the pressure in Pluto's atmosphere doubled during the intervening 14 years, despite Pluto's heliocentric recession. To continue monitoring Pluto's volatile atmosphere, we deployed to several sites in Australia and New Zealand for the 2006 June 12 occultation of P384.2 (McDonald and Elliot 2000, AJ 119:1999) by Pluto.
A lightcurve was obtained from the 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope(AAT) at 5 Hz with a SNR of >25; per point. Additional lightcurves were provided from smaller telescopes near Longford (Tasmania), Reedy Creek (Queensland), Wellington (NZ), Stockport Observatory (South Australia), and Hawkesbury Heights (NSW). Weather precluded observations at Wanaka (NZ) and Auckland (NZ). The lightcurves from smaller telescopes are critical in constraining the shadow path of the event.
The quality of the AAT lightcurve is sufficient to measure changes in Pluto's bulk atmosphere, as well as temperatures and densities at a sampling of 10 points per scale height. Small spikes in the AAT lightcurve indicate density perturbations in Pluto's atmosphere. We will present pressures, temperatures, and densities in Pluto's atmosphere from June 2006, and place these in historical context.
This work was supported by grants from NSF Major Research Instrumentation and NASA Planetary Atmospheres.

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